Cooper Canadian Blonde hopped up 11/27

[Psylocide]

Yeah, sometimes a fermentation will produce a rather dense krausen that'll perform that way. Isn't brewing science weird sometimes?

It is.

But, the krausen had actually completely receded before I added the hop pellets, which produced about 1" to 1.5" of pure green hop foam on top of the beer. I can't imagine how long that would've taken to recede on its own...

 

[unionrdr]

Soilent green is people!!!! Hops can cause a nucleation point & foam up like that as well.

 

[Psylocide]

Cold Crash is going well... hop foam is gone. Few flakes on top yet, but I'm sure they'll sink by Saturday. If not I'll just avoid them.

Put the airlock back on with starsan since it seems to be at temp.

 

[Psylocide]

Bottled this yesterday but forgot to take a pic of the beer... it was pretty clear but man do I 'suck' at siphoning.

Hit he trub twice because the cane was way longer than I thought, otherwise everything went pretty smoothly. Ended up with 46 12 oz beers... it tastes great. But as my brewing buddy put it, "really good... just wish it wasn't flat." Lol.

 

[Psylocide]

Well... what do you all think? Cost = Negligible (printed at home, applied with milk) Time = 30 mins for 46 bottles.

I've deviated so far from style that what I believe I have here is an APA (or close enough... I'm not one to really give a ****e).

 

[Psylocide]

Boom.









I know it's green, but went from brew to glass in 26 days and it's... just awesome. Can't wait to see what another week in the bottle does.

Merry Freaking Christmas everyone!

 

[unionrdr]

Looks pretty good already! Head should improve with time as well.

 

[Psylocide]

Looks pretty good already! Head should improve with time as well.

Yeah... that picture was actually after I had taken a few sips. Head was pretty big... it was to the top of the glass, and almost had a "sparkling" type fizz to it... after it warms a bit, the flavor/body really improves.

I'm happy with this brew and have learned a lot from it... now, on to the next. Thanks for all the help.

 

[unionrdr]

That's part of why we're all here. My Bavarian hefe @ 2.8 VCo2 has head that sorta sparkles like that.

 

[Psylocide]

That's part of why we're all here. My Bavarian hefe @ 2.8 VCo2 has head that sorta sparkles like that.

I think I should have added about a pound of maltodextrin as well, it's a little thin until the carbonation chills out a bit... but it's still green. We'll see.

I scaled back the priming sugar as well... I did about a half cup of corn sugar. Glad I have a scale now, I can be a little more precise going forward.

 

[unionrdr]

Mine used some 6lbs of Bavarian wheat DME with 3C watermelon juice. I think it has a bit too much wheat flavor & not enough watermelon. But the digital scale definitely comes in handy for the sake of accuracy.

 

[Psylocide]

Mine used some 6lbs of Bavarian wheat DMe with 3C watermelon juice. I think it has a bit too much wheat flavor & not enough watermelon. But the digital scale definitely comes in handy for the sake of accuracy.

Did you find that your first few brews were on the thin side? Do you use a lot of maltodextrin?

I'm doing 2 more extract batches this weekend and want a little more body.

This batch was 3 lbs Light DME, 3.3 lbs Coopers Blonde LME, 1 lb corn sugar and ~2 oz Maltodextrin.

I'm wondering if the culprit isn't the 1 lb of Corn Sugar. Should have probably just subbed DME for that...

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah, definitely sub some plain DME for the sugar. That should give a bit more body. I had to adjust amounts of DME added to the cooper's cans & hop levels to balance it all out better. It's all in how much "unfermentables" the extracts you use have that give body, flavor, etc. Over & above the type of yeast & relative attenuation.

 

[Psylocide]

Yeah, definitely sub some plain DME for the sugar. That should give a bit more body. I had to adjust amounts of DME added to the cooper's cans & hop levels to balance it all out better. It's all in how much "unfermentables" the extracts you use have that give body, flavor, etc.

Yeah... thinking I should fix one thing at a time. Next brew I'll use all DME, and cut out the sugar completely.

If that doesn't get me where I want to be, I'll start looking at adding Malto. I should start steeping grains too... that may help things a little.

 

[Psylocide]

Update on this for 12/28 tasting.

Well, it's been a exactly a month since I brewed this beer and thought I would close this thread out on a note with my experience with this little "experiment."

It pours a slightly (I do mean ever so slightly) hazy orange/amberish color with a big foamy head that mellows out nicely but stays with the brew the whole way through (I might drink too fast).

The excess "carbonation" that I was tasting at first seems to actually be a mixture of how dry this beer is, increased by the addition of 1 lb of Corn sugar (too much, wouldn't use any going forward) and the intense flavor/aroma given off by the 5 oz combined of Centennial/Citra/Cascade hops. This was hop-bursted, I added no bittering additions besides what they did with the Coopers LME can.

This has lead to a somewhat unbalanced flavor. The mouthfeel is lacking and the malt flavor does little to balance the intensity of the hop schedule. Lesson learned.

All in all, a very drinkable beer, but could have been better. Not sure I'll play around with this again. But if I were to do it, I would add more DME and less corn sugar.

These may improve some as the hop flavor fades, but that remains to be seen. Cheers, thanks for reading.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah, what you were tasting wasn't so much carbonation as that crisp bite on the back from the dryness & hops. Meritorious in some beers, like hybris lagers, etc.

 

[Psylocide]

Yeah, what you were tasting wasn't so much carbonation as that crisp bite on the back from the dryness & hops. Meritorious in some beers, like hybris lagers, etc.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Either way, I won't feel bad drinking them... I have about 13 dollars invested in this brew.

 

[unionrdr]

I enjoy that little bit of crispness on the back myself. I think it's a bit more refreshing that way.